By Jean Boulton.
What is a useful way to clarify the underpinning ontological ground of complexity? What can we learn from the work of Edgar Morin (2006), who distinguishes between those working within the frames of restricted and general complexity? And how are these frames relevant to practice?
Morin makes a distinction between:
- a framing of complexity that sits within the ontology of classical science, which he calls ‘restricted complexity’
- the ‘general complexity’ of the ‘real world,’ where general complexity is more paradoxical, more integrating, more challenging, ambiguous and uncertain – but also ripe with potential.
Restricted complexity emanates from the world of models, maps and mathematics. The aim is to find ways to represent the complexity of the real world, by finding a good map.
General complexity, by contrast, starts further back into the primordial mud, and champions the attainment of knowledge through wandering the ‘territory’. It is complexity that is beyond (or before) mathematics and cannot be entirely captured by models, flowcharts or causal loop diagrams. It is messier and more concerned with engaging with the rich nature of the terrain than a representation of that terrain. General complexity often starts with experiment and observation – of forests, cells, swirls in chemical systems, galaxies, social groups or societies – rather than with conceptual abstractions.
Both approaches to complexity are designed to help us determine how to act and live in the complex world; both see a role for models and maps, but they are situated within distinct ontologies.
The underlying ontologies
Restricted complexity is based on classical science which searches for “the hidden order that is the authentic reality of the universe” (Morin, 2006, 6). The models and mathematics required to achieve this are far from simple, but there is an underlying assumption of order to be uncovered and of stability rather than instability. The implication is that, with clever mathematics and computational techniques, we can represent and understand ‘real-life’ pretty well.
Those embracing the fullness of general complexity point out that with restricted complexity, “one still remains within the frameworks of classical science” (Morin, 2006:10) and that the approaches “remain in important respects merely reductionist” (Byrne and Callaghan 2014: 2). For example, mathematical models generally need to define boundaries, cannot easily handle paradox and must severely restrict the diversity and ability to learn when representing human actors. They are helpful in exploring ‘the now’ and less able to handle an emerging future (Boulton 2024: 129).
In contrast, general complexity aims to focus on the real-life situation itself, rather than a simplified representation of it. It is based on recognition that, for patterns to emerge, situations need to be open to their wider surroundings, and there must exist a level of diversity and variation amongst the constituents. There is also an irreducible, entwined inter-relationship between the micro and the macro. There is a degree of order or form, but it never entirely stabilises, and there is always a degree of disorder. Situations are inherently paradoxical, not entirely definable, and liable to change over time.
This paradoxical, elusive dance – between order and disorder, between stability and chaos, between form and formlessness, between certainty and uncertainty – is the stuff of general complexity. There is always an irreconcilable, intrinsic tension that must be embraced. There is no assumption that there is an objective ‘order behind appearances’. Features that are paradoxical, subjective, sometimes emerging and sometimes stabilising cannot be reduced to objective and definable parameters and dimensions, as in classical science. Moreover, this ‘messiness’, a messiness that cannot be captured by analytical means, is both inevitable and a largely positive quality of the world. Indeed, it is the source of novelty, emergence, resilience and change.
Relevance to practice
In practice, both ontologies have value. And the truth is that, even if we try, we can never work with all the information that is there, so in some sense or another we are always making choices about what to include and what to ignore, whether computational models are involved or not. If we were to try to know everything before we decide anything, it would take us all our time, and the situation, in the meantime, would have been changed by the process of looking!
Sometimes we like our complexity to be general, and sometimes we know it has to have a degree of restriction, depending on the context and our aims. We all adopt some form of framing, some form of modelling, if only through the way we talk about something. We all ‘abstract’ to a degree and go beyond merely immersing ourselves in the world’s complexities.
Without an ability to abstract and consider the implications of a complex world, we would struggle to make sense, make decisions and take action. But we need to take care to not become blind to our simplifying assumptions and wedded to our preferred methods. We should continue to remain alert to what is missing and what is shifting and keep an eye on the skittishness and ‘wilfulness’ of the territory, and its ability to confound us.
Closing questions
Does this resonate with how you think about complexity and tackle it in practice? Are there other ontologies or practices that you think are useful for understanding and dealing with complexity?
To find out more:
Boulton, J. (2024). The dao of complexity: Making sense and making waves in turbulent times. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany. See especially Chapter 31 “The raw and the cooked of complexity,” which contains additional ideas and references.
Embracing complexity—Jean Boulton’s website. (Online): https://www.embracingcomplexity.com/.
References:
Byrne, D. and Callaghan, G. (2014) Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. 1st edition. Routledge: Milton Park, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
Morin, E. (2006). Restricted complexity, general complexity. In, C. Gershenson, D. Aerts and B. Edmonds. (eds.), Worldviews, science and us: Philosophy and complexity, World Scientific: Singapore.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution or the work on which the contribution is based. (For i2Insights policy on artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Jean Boulton PhD is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a visiting academic with the Universities of Cranfield and Bath, in the United Kingdom. She has been deeply involved in the science and philosophy of complexity since the mid-1990s and the honing of these ideas continues to inform her research, consultancy work and personal practice.
Dear Dra. Jean,
Thank you very much for highlighting these nuances and distinctions between the different types of complexity. It is wonderful to understand when we are working within one type or another.
That said, I believe there should be a healthy blend of these perspectives. The key, in my view, is knowing when each type of complexity is most appropriate.
This made me wonder: within the types of complexity you describe, where would you place our process? (https://i2insights.org/2023/10/24/intervention-design-process/) another i2s Blogpost like yours!
Thank you again for sharing your knowledge and your time.
Another elegant blog, Jean – thank you for taking me back to a favourite arena of entwined deliberation and practice.
As someone who has dabbled and explored for many years in the territory of ‘general complexity’, Morin’s “Restricted Complexity, General Complexity” paper has always resonated heavily with me. Morin makes a series of profoundly important and fruitful distinctions, while also pinpointing what is lacking in classical science’s systematic rejection of complexity. This is a favourite paper that I keep going back to and referring to. It is very scribbled upon!
For me, one of the many important points that Morin makes is on the theme of separation and connection.
Generalised complexity, in having a concern for all fields, relates to our knowledge as human beings and citizens. It thus has a bearing upon our organisation of knowledge itself. Yet, Morin points out, our education has overemphasised separation rather than connection:
“Since we have been domesticated by our education which taught us much more to separate than to connect, our aptitude for connecting is underdeveloped and our aptitude for separating is overdeveloped; I repeat that knowing, is at the same time separating and connecting, it is to make analysis and synthesis.” Morin
Morin also emphasises the need for contextualisation as a principle of knowledge, as the splitting up of knowledge into compartments prevents such linking and contextualising, in terms of one thing from another, and also interactions within the living environment. He emphasises the need to conceive of a science that connects disciplines rather than suppresses them, in order to make them fertile: this form of science needs to both distinguish and connect, and where such transdisciplinarity is in effect inseparable from complexity. All is fused together dynamically, and new possibilities emerge that way. Whereas compartmentalisation has disintegrated complexity, a vision of transdisciplinarity helps to restore the ‘natural fabric’ of complexity.
Morin’s paper remains a crucial one for our time, guiding us towards deep reform of our mental functioning and being. I would highly recommend the benefits of reading it – and also the pleasure of returning to it periodically – as well as Jean’s important book.
Hi Cathy, lovely to get your comments. I also go back to that paper time and again, and to the book ‘On Complexity’ (2008) with a foreword by Alfonso Montuori. I wrote a LI post connecting to a very good write up on Morin here https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jean-boulton-6856471_the-thinker-the-century-couldnt-hear-activity-7472266305241399296-g4iv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABFzwUBwa7mZ3w2qbUWpSNQqoX9t6nCL-o . Morin, as you say, was a great proponent of interdisciplinarity, he also coined the term polycrisis and an article he wrote a couple of years before his death, a few weeks ago, at 104 showed how he was still pushing for people to think about the impact of today on the future. Thanks for rounding out the discussion on Morin.
This is great. Thank you, Jean.
In my experience of nurturing conditions for learning together, the ability of people, including me, to perceive and hold complexity feels intimately connected with the patterns and nature of communication and relationships that develop.
The central hypothesis of Iain McGilchrist’s work is that we have two ways of attending, associated with the right and left hemispheres of our brains, the former of which is experiential and the latter representational. This feels to me to be aligned with Morin’s distinction, as you describe it, between general and restricted complexity, respectively.
One thing that strikes me as transformative in McGilchrist’s worldview is that, although we can see the world only partially, our experiential manner of knowing enables us to “see the world directly. It is not a re-presentation, but a real presence: there is not a wall between us and the world.” (McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p11)
Let’s assume that the alignment between Morin’s and McGilchrist’s distinctions holds up to scrutiny (it might not!) Then I wonder whether experience as a process of relational encounter (via our right hemispheric manner of attention), which McGilchrist considers to be direct experience of reality itself, is a different ontology from Morin’s “focus on the real-life situation itself”?
I guess that is a question back to you, if it is of interest.
Thanks Roger, a great link. I write about this in my recent book, The Dao of Complexity (2024:193-198). Good spot. The connection I think is that if the world is complex (in the sense expressed by general complexity – systemic, patterned, always adjusting and becoming, emergent, paradoxical, contextual) – the ontology – then the right brain is best attuned for knowing about that world. As you say, depending on the issue, direct experience – relational encounter is how best to know the immediate – like what is happening in this group, or for me engaging with my community. When we are talking about bigger pictures things – like what are the patterns in an organisational culture, or how might the future of a region develop, or what led to the conditions that manifest in a particular part of the world, then we might include other methods of inquiry – narrative based, drawing on others experience and stories – qualitative and subjective methods of knowing. And, having apprehended the world with the right brain, the left brain can drill down into detail, check hypotheses, make plans. Does that resonate?
Thank you for your response, Jean. I have just bought your book, so I may have more informed thoughts in due course. They say that when something appears for a third time, it’s time to act, and I have a tendency to use this as a way of managing my book buying habit. Mention number 3 has never before come to me from the author herself, so this purchase feels special.
Anyway, lots of resonance, and a few things are coalescing…
Firstly, I like the idea of any inquiry, at whatever scale of concern, being led by qualitative and subjective modes of knowing, followed by (left hemispheric) mapping processes. McGilchrist stresses that the movement then must be completed by “giving this back to the right hemisphere” to ground us back in reality. This RH-LH-RH (Right Hemisphere – Left Hemisphere – Right Hemisphere) sequencing is a little artificial given that everything we do involves both hemispheres, but the point of grounding in lived reality at the “start” and the “end” – supported, but not dominated, by the hypotheses, details and plans – is essential.
My context: Having originally trained as a physicist, I inherited a mode of inquiry that largely starts with a strong reliance on the left hemisphere with theoretically-consistent hypotheses, moves to experience (or, rather, measurement of experience, so perhaps still maintaining a distance from the mess of reality) and back to largely left hemispheric analysis. This, I think, is a scientific LH-RH-LH movement that is almost guaranteed to insulate us from general complexity – especially if the restricted complexity of our discipline is as compellingly effective and beautiful as it can be in physics.
Secondly, I am thinking now about the whole process of learning, and the importance of interweaving action/experience with reflection for real learning to be happening. I suddenly get the idea of characterising Action Learning as the interplay between general complexity and restricted complexity. Thank you for that.
Finally, the importance of language. McGilchrist is very careful to distinguish between “apprehension” (holding on to), which is what the left hemisphere is good at, and “comprehension” (holding together), which is what the right hemisphere is good at. I am also – largely as a result of spending time with Nora Bateson and warm data ideas – very aware of the distinction between “about-ing” and “within-ing”. We can probably get quite a long way in a world of restricted complexity while studiously holding ourselves at a distance from the complexity we are talking “about”. But if we are experiencing general complexity then there is no removing our processes of perception and description from the reality of that experience. So I reckon we know “about” the world through our left hemispheric mode of attention, while our right hemispheric attention is always “within” the flow of the world, and knows it is (in the sense of kennen rather than wissen, to reach for German in which two senses of knowing are distinguished).
Hi Roger, thanks for your thorough response. Lots of aspects to respond to. One issue is about language and how different authors use different words to mean different things. For me, given the world is complex (in the way Morin describes general complexity) then the ways of knowing are right brain guided – dealing with patternings, small shoots of newness, narrative, multiple perspectives. I devote a section of the Dao of Complexity to that. Then judging what to do is often subjective too, but the doing of it requires more of the analytical features of the left brain. When I work with mapping, it is with a group, with posts its, with ‘surfacing themes’, spotting oppportunities. I wouldnt see the world as complex and the ways of knowing as sitting within restricted – as, I agree with Morin, that restricted methods cannot see the living, shifting nature of the social and natural world – cannot easily include those things not yet there, cannot handle emergence. So that is my view. And, I completely agree that there is no outside, another reason restricted methods are limited – the ontology of general complexity includes the inner as well as the outer world, if I can use that language. So that is how I have landed with this – and great to have other perspectives too 🙂
Hi Roger, just had another thought. This post is about ontology – a view of the nature of the world. A restricted complexity ontology assumes hidden order and the methods relevant to that are seeking to uncover that hidden order. The ontology of general complexity does not assume there is hidden order but a more paradoxical, embodied, every becoming stance as to the way things are – thus the methods of knowing need to reflect that ontology. Methods resonant with the ontology of restricted complexity can discover many things but not the entwined, relational, subjective, embedded, emergence qualities of the living world. Hope that helps to clarify where I am coming from
I appreciate your clarity, and your generosity in taking the time to respond to a passing stranger. I hope others may find their own insights in our exchange here. Warm wishes, Roger.
delighted to engage and hope it is connecting with your own inquiries 🙂
Beautiful!
So important to remember that “this ‘messiness’, a messiness that cannot be captured by analytical means, is both inevitable and a largely positive quality of the world. Indeed, it is the source of novelty, emergence, resilience and change” as we struggle to find meaning in the world.
thank you. Glad you find it helpful!
Thanks Jean for such a clear and fascinating description of types of complexity. It reminds me of the difference between the Kantian argument that knowledge is derived from abstract principles (models) and the view of Goethe and Humboldt that ‘wandering’ in the world (noticing, drawing and writing) is how we learn to understand it. Dalia Nassar’s recent book ‘Romantic Empiricism’ is a beautiful exposition of this contrast between the application of principles that model our world, and the immersive attentiveness to actual phenomena that enables us to see complexity, connectedness and emergence.
Thanks Jane. Goethe had a great influence on Brian Goodwin, one of the complexity biologists who I respect and I explore this connection in my book ‘the dao of complexity’ (2024:171). Goethe talks of discerning ‘meaningful wholes or patterns’. To quote myself (!) ‘one example of holistic appreciation is listening to a piece of music. On one level music is just a series of notes; it is our sensory experience of those notes which turns it into music – music that has an integrity, form and meaning’. Goethe also focused on how we can see the glimmerings of new beginnings through watching and accompanying things as they are in the process of emerging and becoming. Juliana Schneider wrote a lovely paper on this. I also like that image you mention of wandering – being open to notice both the relatively established patternings and the ‘beginning of the beginnings’. I haven’t heard of Dalia Nassar’s book but I will find it! Thank you!
And I look forward to reading ‘The dao of complexity’! Thanks Jean!
Thank you for sharing this, Jean.
Your final paragraph particularly resonates with me. I think it is impossible for one person or discipline to grasp and hold the whole general complexity of most situations. However, if we can bring a variety of ‘retricted’ perspectives into (productive and timely) dialogue, we can start mapping where coherence is strong and where perspectives conflict.
I am curious for your thoughts on this. Do you think it is possible to ‘build up’ to(wards) general complexity from a variety of restricted lenses?
What a wonderful article! As you note, we can’t access the territory directly, hence why we make maps. There will always be that fundamental gap between the thing, and the rendering of the thing. In science, we’re taught to notice and then close gaps using research experiments. But this gap you’re laying out is irreconcilable. So what are we to do? Turn to poetry I suppose
Hi Allison, thanks! I am a scientist too. But not just turn to poetry (although myth and story have their role in both surfacing and expressing that which is beyond the objective), but turn to approaches of ‘critical subjectivity’ – multiple perspectives grappling together to surface what is there and what is changing, inclusion of the use of intuition as well as classical reason. Brian Goodwin (complexity biologist) speaks of how an experienced medical practitioner assesses health – through hard data but also through engaging with the patient, a felt sense of health or disease. I wrote in the Dao of Complexity (2024:225) about my dentist. He said that training in dentristry under-emphasises training people to use judgement, to decide what to do when the patient doesn’t fit the norm he or she has been taught to expect. These relational reflexive aspects of dentistry are learned through experience. I wonder too if many creative scientists start with hunches and intuitions rather than with hard data. And experiments can close the gaps it is true, but the living shifting adapting ecologies of the social and natural world go beyond that sort of objective knowing as the situations themselves include paradox at the core. Ways of knowing in a complex world reframe what science is, I think 🙂
You’ve given me a lot to think about, thank you for such a thoughtful reply Jean! I just ordered your book and I look forward to reading it, thanks again for sharing your work
Hi Thomas, thanks for your reply. The issue I think resides not merely in the difficulties of knowing, but in the idea of ontological indeterminism – the idea that there is no objective thing to be known. When the situation we are looking at is relatively stable, then multiple perspectives can, as you say, home in on the relatively stable patterns of relationships and behaviours. But, as Morin (and Prigogine) say, if we are looking at living, changing, adapting, sometimes collapsing social and natural world, then it is the weaving at the micro level of many factors that both causes situations to stabilise and to unravel. A previous blog I wrote shared on i2insights emphasises that complex situations are open to the wider context – when we are looking at and for change and emergence, then the weaving together of many disparate factors, the triggering by variations is central to what happens. So I think, as you say, in stable situations, many restricted lenses can provide some illumination, but it will struggle to explore the dynamic, nuanced, subtle shifts that both create stability and change. I argue that to embrace general complexity is to grapple with nuance, paradox, subjectivity and emergence and requires ways of knowing that include narrative, intuition, participation and embodiment. To quote Morin: “otherwise you lose the capacity to understand anything that actually matters: the climate, the mind, the society, the self, the living systems on which everything depends”. Thank you for your comments and hope this helps to unpick ‘general complexity’ a little more.
Hi Jean,
Thanks a lot for your generous and insightful response. As a Frenchman I feel I need to read up on my Morin (vale) and this is giving me plenty of motivation to do so. Thank you also for unpicking general complexity a little more and bringing the frame of ontological indeterminism: this is very helpful.
“I argue that to embrace general complexity is to grapple with nuance, paradox, subjectivity and emergence and requires ways of knowing that include narrative, intuition, participation and embodiment.”
> This part of your reply particularly resonated with me, as I am interested in the role of games as methods and spaces to enable subjectivity to be experienced and expressed.
But games are often more maps than territories: the ‘magic circle’ might in most cases be too closed a boundary for games to meet the 3 conditions you mentioned in your earlier blog post. The 4 ways of knowing that you mention here seem, to me, to have more commonality with play. I am curious whether you see play, and playfulness, as a quality, practice or lens (insofar as an indeterministic world might be seen as a world that has play or a certain ‘looseness’ in it) that can be useful for embracing general complexity?
Hi Thomas, ooh lovely question. I think play, like experimentation, trying things out, is a great way to both surface how the complex world works and ‘play’ with how to act skillfully. So what my two blogs are trying to land is what is the nature of the complex world – any ecological or social patterns that emerge and sustain need engagement with the wider world, reflexive relationships and diversity. And these patternings, to know them, require subtle, more subjective methods to surface what those patterns are and how they might be changing. So those conditions I describe are a function of the nature of the world – the ontology. Play and games are ways of finding out more about that complex world (epistemology) and experimenting with how to act (exploring methodologies). So, for example, something as simple as, with a group of people ‘keep two people equidistant from you as we move around the room’ is a game which can allow exploration of how bird flocking occurs. So yes, I see play and playfulness as really useful ways of exploring that territory and experimenting with how to engage skillfully. Hope that makes some sense!
Hi Jean,
Thank you again for another excellent response (love the ‘systems triangle’ game you describe). This is very helpful!
This is beautifully written, Jean. Thanks for it.
🙂 thank you. This is an excerpt from a longer piece on the same subject in my book the Dao of Complexity. Also more stuff on my website embracingcomplexity dot com, if that is useful 🙂